Go With Your Palate
Joe Wagner, 5th Generation Winemaker, presents the podcast "Go With Your Palate." A podcast about wine, entrepreneurship, and whatever the F else. So buckle up - this isn't your normal wine podcast.
Go With Your Palate
E97 Daryn Colledge pt 2 | Joe Wagner
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He grew up in North Pole, Alaska, won a Super Bowl with the Packers, served in Afghanistan, and now owns a wine company.
Daryn Colledge has lived about three different lifetimes - and somehow he's just getting started.
This is one incredible story of leadership, reinvention, and saying yes to the next challenge.
🎙️ Go With Your Palate: Daryn Colledge | Super Bowls, Black Hawks & Three Fat Guys Wines
This week, we’re joined by a man who’s lived enough adventures for three lifetimes - Daryn Colledge: Super Bowl XLV Champion, Army National Guard veteran, restaurateur, entrepreneur, and co-founder of Three Fat Guys Wines. From growing up in North Pole, Alaska (yes, the real North Pole... and yes, Daryn knows Santa) to protecting quarterbacks in the NFL, serving overseas as a UH-60 Black Hawk Crew Chief, and eventually finding his way into the wine business, his story is anything but ordinary.
We dive into Daryn’s incredible journey from Boise State to the Green Bay Packers' Super Bowl run, the challenges he faced along the way, and the lessons learned both on and off the field. He shares stories from his playing days, memorable fan interactions, and what leadership, accountability, and teamwork look like when the pressure is at its highest.
But what makes Daryn’s story so compelling is what came after football. We talk about his decision to serve in the Idaho Army National Guard, his deployment to Afghanistan, and his ability to continually embrace new challenges - even when most people would be content slowing down.
Today, that same drive fuels Three Fat Guys Wines and his work in the restaurant world, where quality, hospitality, and creating unforgettable experiences for guests are at the center of everything he does. Whether it’s a bottle of wine or a meal shared with friends, Daryn believes great experiences are built the same way great teams are - through passion, preparation, and people.
And because this is Go With Your Palate, we have some fun along the way: Alaska stories, mentorship, leadership lessons, and Daryn’s latest challenge - somehow agreeing to run 50 miles because apparently winning a Super Bowl wasn't difficult enough. (Thanks, Steve. You'll understand when you tune in.)
It’s inspiring, hilarious, and packed with lessons on service, reinvention, and making the most of every chapter life gives you.
Grab a glass and join us for one of the most remarkable life stories we've had on the podcast yet. 🍷🏈🇺🇸
All right, here's another segment of What Your Palette. We got a very special guest on the podcast today. Special is a good word, right? Darren College. Uh his list of accomplishments is absolutely astonishing. We uh got we got into some great stories from your time being in the NFL, uh winning a Super Bowl, time in the National Guard, now a restaurateur, working in uh in fine wine with uh three fat guys, the brand, uh raising a family, moving around the country. I I mean it just it goes on and on. Yeah, that was awful. Felt like we had more. But if you if you want to hear a story about uh accomplishments, what motivates people, this is it. Great story. Thank you for being here. It was a true pleasure talking to you. Oh, thank you guys. It was a lot of fun. I feel like we could have gone longer. I think we I think we got on three hours. I think we could have three.
SPEAKER_03I think if I had to have you back, man, that's cool. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Episode two. I'm thinking remote. We do one boys.
SPEAKER_00Let's do it. I'll put us on the raft and we can shoot it on the river. Yeah, yeah. I'm down.
SPEAKER_01We got to just hear the story about you know the feeling of winning a Super Bowl and the the kind of the journey
How it feels to win a Super Bowl (Green Bay Packers)!
SPEAKER_01at the end of the season, getting through all that, everybody coming together, just you I mean, I'm sure you've told it a million times, but no, I mean it's it was it was really surreal.
SPEAKER_00I mean, it was awesome. We we did not come out that year as the team. Like we always have confidence in yourself. You always put in the work, you always put in the training, you've got the guys, we've got a Charles Woodson, we've got on defense, we've got a you know Aaron Rodgers on offense, we've got the leadership that we need, but we just did not come out firing on all cylinders that year like we thought we would. Overcame some overcame some issues, but got hot late, which is always dangerous in the NFL. Like, I don't care if you don't win the first five games. You you get a team that gets on a roll and and you guys know anybody who's played sports, and and most people know this in life, but if you've been around sports especially, like momentum is something you can taste. Like it is an actual tactile, you feel it, smell it, taste it in the room, like in an in whether it's in a you know in the uh in the football season itself or in the stadium itself or in the play or the series or whatever it is, man, you can feel it. And we just had this like we're starting to build momentum at the right time, we were in dangerous at the right time, and we were probably not gonna blow the doors off anybody, but if you let us be in the game, we had a chance and we nipped our way into the playoffs. We came as the wild card at the end and we're like, just give us a chance. But we were gonna go on the road for every one of our games. And for us, that actually was what we needed, right? Like we didn't want to be at home. We needed the we needed again that lock the doors, be together, fight us against the world. And we went on the road to win all of our playoff games. And again, shit ton of it was work, and a big part of it was luck. And one of those things was there was a fumble that happened in Chicago that a ball 99 out of a hundred times should have bounced out of bounds and and remained in their possession. And it stayed on our it stayed on the sideline. And one of our uh Clay Matthews recovered this fumble, and we were able to take it in and score a touchdown, and that was one of the difference makers in the game. It's one of those things where like we did all the work and we put ourselves in a position for just to have the one opportunity for luck, you know, that left us in the game and made it. And nobody had ever come out of the West and gone through the wild card to win it all. So again, we were, you know, we were behind the eight ball going to that, heading in to face the Steelers, um, a team that just won a championship two years before that, and their defense was renowned. They had Ben, Big Ben on court, you know, and you got Heinz Ward, you got all these names that you're like, you know, Hall of Famers and all pro guys. And we're running with like one of the younger offensive lines of the NFL. You know, it's one of those things where it's like, okay, like we got to match up, and then we've got a really solid defense, but they full of young, you know, make it hungry guys, and you're led by a Charles Woodson and all those kinds of things. And it was surreal, right? We did all the press stuff and all this cool stuff, and we got to do all that, and then they kind of shut you down and they make it really, really feel like a game week, right? You you stay at the hotel, you have practices, um, they lock you down kind of completely. Like all the funning games is over. The first three days is party, the next four days is all work. And I went out there and I was like, I'm in the Super Bowl, like this is wild. We were on defense first, and I finally got to go off for my first series, and I was just like, this is just wild. You know, we're in Jerry's playground here, you know, he just built the stadium and my family's there. People are watching. I'm like, oh my God, it's a Super Bowl. And I put my hand on the ground. I'm like, I'm putting my hand on the ground, the Super Bowl. I mean, like shit when I was a kid, right? And I hit the dude across from me with my face so hard that I was like, all right, cool, it's a football game. And didn't think about it again. Swear to God, didn't think about it again until the very end. Had a terrible play in the fourth quarter that thought I'd cost us the game. Aaron saved me from that, brought us back, and we ended up scoring on that drive and kind of finishing off. And I didn't realize it was the Super Bowl again, or didn't really think about the Super Bowl again until like their one of their last drives. And I was like looking up and I'm like, there's like four minutes left in the Super Bowl, and we're winning. And I'm like, we might win the Super Bowl, right? And we won. And the confetti drop, we we got to go out there and kneel on it, and uh the hugs and the confetti and the whole nine yards. My wife, um, who was pregnant with our daughter, uh, smuggled herself some on the somehow on the field. So they talk about all the security, but back then I obviously wasn't that good. They got a little pregnant lady got on the field, was able to get to within uh got to within touching the uh the Lombardi trophy without much of a problem. Um found my dad. Um and it was amazing. And all I wanted to do was have a beer and take a take a nap and uh hold the trophy. And I've said this on podcasts before, and I think a lot of people find this in success. Like it was an amazing thing. It was very short-lived. Like we did the parade the next day, and then it was kind of like all right, what's next? Yeah, and I've realized in my life the journey is where the real real joy is, right? The struggle, the stories with the friends, the build-up, the the overcoming all those things, everything we did to get to that moment is 99% of it. We did everything we could to put ourselves an opportunity to win that championship, and we took that step, and there's no denying that that's an amazing thing. Like it was an amazing accomplishment, and it's something I'll hold on to the rest of my life. But everything I hold on to is everything that I did before that, and that's probably why the ring is in the safe. I don't really think about the ring that much. I think more about these stories and the things we overcame as a group to get to that place, and then you try to start figuring out how to do it again because all of a sudden guys were getting moved and guys were getting new contracts, and guys were trying to go to other places and win games, or guys were retiring, and guys were trying to find out the rest of their lives, and that Super Bowl celebration lasted for a day and a half, and there was 363 other days that it took to get to that point, and uh it's just uh it's one of those things. So, yeah, super, super, super special, but really a special year more than it was the Super Bowl itself.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Oh, well said. Yeah, that's very cool. I I definitely agree. The journey is is all of it. Uh you look back and you you get you get your accomplishments, whatever else, but you always want what's next. You always want to.
SPEAKER_00But I think we all strive for that journey. That's well, and I think that that's I think that that's what's helped me in my life also to realize that like those eight other years I didn't win. Eight other years were failures, right? Like my career is defined by success because people say, hey, you played nine years, you won a championship. Like you didn't. I said, Yeah, but I failed eight years. Like eight years I didn't go out and do what was required of me to get to the end to to win a championship. My career is actually defined by failure, it's not success. Like, we're not all Tom Brady. Yeah, and even Tom Brady's career didn't win more Super Bowls than he played. If you allow those failures and those successes to be what you think is actually your definition, then that's not true. It's the journey. You know, what did I learn during those eight other years? What did I learn that one year of the success? That's the things that set me up for all the things that are happening in my life. And that's what I try to tell some of these kids like you may never get there. You may never ever be at the very, very top of that mountain. But I promise you, if you ever do get to the top of that mountain, you're just gonna look for the next mountain. Uh huh. So you're just gonna be looking for the next thing. Because if you're not challenging yourself, you're not putting yourself in situations where you think you have a chance of failure, then you're not challenging yourself enough. You're not growing at all. And I grew more in those eight years of losing than I ever did in that one year of winning.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I I I love what you said. I like it because it's like this idea of celebrating your your failures. Because I feel like if you if you can celebrate your failures, that means you showed up because you were there to do it.
SPEAKER_00God, hopefully, I'm fortunate enough in my life to be continue to put in situations where I can continue to try to travel myself, you know, challenge myself and be useful. Like that's all I want. I just want to continue being useful. I want to find new things to do and new ways to help. And it's just not all gonna work out. It's not all championships, it's not all roses, it's not all million-dollar endings. Yeah, you know, it's just one of those things like, hey man, I hope we're all fortunate enough to be in a situation where we can continue to challenge ourselves and and grow and be able to look at our failures as no man, I didn't fail. I just didn't I haven't invented the light bulb yet, right? Like I have always ways to not invent a light bulb, and then I'll get to invent the light bulb at the very end. But I need to, you know, I need to figure out how to not do it right. God, if I was winning the first time I did everything, life would be boring as hell. Right, I need the opposite side of that coin. Yeah, you know, I need the things that define my greatness by the things that I'm that I'm really, really bad at.
SPEAKER_01And I I do think the showing up piece, whether whether it's for good or bad, or you know, like you're winning or losing, um, that's what I try to instill in my kids all the time is like just show up. 90% of life is just showing up, and you're you're gonna you're gonna learn one way or the other through that process, but you just sit there doing nothing, looking at a phone, looking at a screen.
SPEAKER_00My daughter's 14 this year. She's gonna be 15 this month, actually. And she got her very first job and she works for me. And uh obviously
True grit and solid work ethic prevails (passing it down)
SPEAKER_00my position as the owner of the business allows her the opportunity to get the job probably without an interview. But I told her day one, I said, you now work for these two people, not me. Dad's not saving you. But I said, if you show up every single day and you're in the right place, the right time with the right uniform on, I said, I promise you got 90% of the business licked. I said, the rest we can teach you. We can teach you things. But if you show up with some effort and some attitude and you're in the right place to do that job, you're gonna have a lot of the world beat, right? Like, because that's that's all anybody wants these days. Like, come out and work. Like, just come out and do a job and care about what you do. And I said, You'll you'll find success. And she was super nervous about it, but sure as shit, man, she shows up and she has her uniform on, she does her job and she works really hard and she's proud of what she's doing, and she gets a little bit of money on the side and she gets to earn that. And that you know, she came back from her first week of work or first actually first two days of work, and she was talking to my wife in the car, and she my wife was asking her about, you know, how's the day? How's it feel? She's like, I'm still nervous, but she's like, it was extremely fulfilling, right? To have that purpose, to have that drive, to go out and earn something and do something and and be more than just sitting around doing nothing. And uh was super proud of her for that because I think that that's something that uh we all have to learn, right? I I I just had a driver smash in the side of my uh broke off my water main last night or two nights ago at my uh my business. Um don't know if it was a medical issue, don't know if they're drunk, doesn't really matter. Um, but they drove through our uh outflow valves for the water system and then plowed a employee's bike and hit a car and uh water spraying everywhere and they shut down my building and uh we can't keep our business home. Restaurants legally can't be open without water. And so we had to send everybody home and then they they threatened to not have the restaurant open the next day, which we knew was probably not gonna happen. And I called the plumbers. I'm like, hey, we're gonna come out and get this fixed. What's the issue? And they're like, Well, we need a we need an excavation team to come out and dig out for the plumbers. And I'm like, it's like the holes, you know, the size of this couch. I'm like, uh, excavator's not coming in, the backhoe's not coming in. So you were talking about two guys digging a ditch. Yeah. And he's like, Yeah, but we we got to find a team, we got to figure it all out, and then we can't start the construction until then. I said, Well, I'm gonna dig it. And they're like, do it. They're like, Well, we got to go through protocol, you gotta get approved. I said, I already called the landlord. I said, I'm going, I was on my way. I was like, because I was already halfway to work. I'm like, I just turned over and I was like, I'm headed over to true value. I bought two shovels and a pair of gloves, and I was like, I'm just gonna dig this hole myself. Yeah. And I said, have the plumber here in 45 minutes, I'll have this hole dug up. And they I should they showed up and they're like, What are you doing? I'm like, I'm digging a hole. Like, we've got a job to do. Like, I've got employees, I got people that like, for one, I've got bills to pay, but I'm like, I got employees that I want to pay. They've they you know, they're missing shifts, they're not getting paid. Like, they want to come to work. I'm like, if it's just about digging a hole, like I just don't, I don't understand. Like, it shouldn't be hard. And I teach my kids like, don't ever be the person not willing to carry the bucket.
SPEAKER_01Everybody's always looking for an excuse to not do the job. I think that not everybody, there's a lot of people out there. A lot of people out there. You know, sifting through those is is is you know, as well, as a business owner yourself. That that's something I think you probably get a good gauge on over time. Like, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think as an owner, like you know, there's always the the the you know, I think it's a it's a faming famous Navy SEAL thing, but like, you know, who's gonna carry the boats? Like, you gotta be one to do the work. Like, I'll pick up a broom shovel, I'll do you know, low volt, like whatever it takes, like you do the job. That's the way I was raised. And I think that there's a lot of people out there that are raised that way. Um, it's just I think we continue to go out there and try to keep finding those people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I don't care if that's professional sports or the the person working down at the coffee shop.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's also how do you how do you how do you teach that? How do you you know develop that skill in people at a young age? And I mean, well, with your daughter, she was working in the restaurant. Yeah. Is she uh serving hostess? She's a she's a food runner, right now. Food runner, but oh that's even better.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so she's learning kitchen side and gotta deal with the people out there. And uh sadly for her, but good for her volleyball career. Um my restaurant's upstairs. So the kitchen's downstairs, restaurant's upstairs. So she walks a lot of stairs in her six-hour shift. So she's gonna get real strong. So she's gonna be jumping over the net this year. Is that Corso? Uh that one's actually the James. So that's my very first restaurant that opened four years ago. Corso's Corso's flat. She can't work at Corso, it's too easy for her. I want her walking the staircase. So you have the new training regime called uh body bag James. I'll tell you what, you're gonna get the legs right. We actually do kind of workout. Yeah, we hire a couple athletes uh occasionally from Boise State, especially during the offseason, and they uh the lot of them take it serious because they're like, it's workout, it's cool. Like I get to run food and I can stay busy. We've also had people quit after two days.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They're like, I'm not walking those stairs. All right?
SPEAKER_01That that happened that we had a restaurant for a while, it's now a tasting room, but uh it was a four-story restaurant. And it was That might be a little much. It killed people. You need a dumbwaiter at that point. You're gonna need to run out of the cable. Yeah, I don't think anybody makes it. The beauty of here in California is you can't have dirty plates going to the same dumbwaiter as as food. You know? So you gotta have to do it. You guys just keep finding a way to do it. I love it. I love it. I love it.
SPEAKER_00California keeps finding ways to screw itself over, man. It's great. Yeah, they're like, hey, how can we make this less attractive for business owners to provide the services for a place that's based on an economy of people showing up? See, and now everybody's moving to Boosey or Taito.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00The governor's the governor points out pretty much weekly that we have a cow problem. California, Oregon, and Washington. Yeah. Governor Little has pointed that out numerous times. We've got more than that.
SPEAKER_01You got a cow problem. We were just talking about them. I know he's got a cow problem.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I like it, man. That's awesome. Yep. All right. So after football, you gotta you gotta you gotta jump into this because I I mean, you how do you find yourself after being in the limelight and like you got a young family? You're I mean, it's yeah, and and then and then what what motivated you to take your next step?
SPEAKER_00Well, I told you, I I said I wasn't gonna use my face at battery and ram anymore, right? I'm gonna get into a safer thing than uh than playing football. So I was like, you know what? I'm gonna fly around in helicopters. Um the journey actually started right after we won the Super Bowl. So Super
From Super Bowl to serving our Country (Army National Guard)
SPEAKER_00Bowl allowed us the opportunity to go out. Everybody's heard of USO tours. So we we started when you win the Super Bowl, that's what you get to do. You get to go out and take the Lombardi trophy out, and you do USO and uh well, lesser known entity called Navy Entertainment. So you go out and see the Marines and you go see the boats and you go see the Navy guys on the on the ships, and we got a chance to do that. So I was in places like Guantanamo and I was in the Middle East and I was in the Red Sea and I was going out and seeing all these troops. And I've told you, and from North Pole, I was raised around that. You know, I've got a lot of military in my family. My brother's a f a former Green Beret. I've got, you know, I've got a bunch of Navy, I mean you know, I've got a cousin who was a Marine, I've got, you know, Air Force, you know, you know, we've got all kinds of military members of my family. So it's one of those things where I was the idea of being the military was what I was gonna do. And went out and saw those troops and took the trophies out. And that was right during the Arab Spring. And these guys were just out there getting after it, just out there away from their families, doing the things, stuck on these ships for months on the time. And the the interesting thing is, you know, you go out to see these guys and and it feels kind of hollow in the sense of like, hey, you want my autograph? Like, that's you know, that that feels bad. Um, not because you don't want to do that for them, but you feel like it's like the the most simple thing in the world for a bunch of people that are putting their life on the line for people they'll never meet. And you start getting to talk to them. So, but we had these fortune opportunities, like we would get done with these autograph sessions and these question-answer sessions, and we would just get to go out on these ships or on these bases and just socialize and go like to hang with them. And they the funniest thing is you think they were gonna ask you about football, but they're asking about what's going on in the real world because they've been stuck on these ships for months. They're like, hey, what's the news out there? What's going on? And you realize they don't got magazines, they don't got, you know, they're not really getting the internet, they're not doing the thing. I'm like, so we go back to one of the our hotels the next day after we get off the ship, and we go down to the PX and we grab all these backpacks and we fill with all the booze out of our uh hotel rooms, and we grab like every magazine off the rack and we fill these backpacks and we start dropping these off on ships. Totally illegal, right? Totally like they they would have gotten in a lot of trouble for it if they any, so if any of them got busted, like I totally apologize, but you know, hopefully hopefully it helped them through with the booze. Um being somebody who served in Afghanistan and now knows you can't just smuggle booze. Um but knew after that those trips that like I was gonna continue to be involved with the military on whatever level I could, whatever my B-level status of celebrity would allow me, right? I was gonna continue to serve and help in any way I thought I could possibly do it. When I got done with the NFL, I almost quit then and was like kind of thinking about maybe I want to join up, maybe this because of what I thought about doing earlier, and then realized I was kind of had the chance to get this second contract and take care of a lot of people. And like I said, I didn't come from money. It was a chance to take care of my wife, my kids, our family, our extended family, take care of some stuff and decided that was that was what needed to be done. Selfishly, that's what needed to be done. And but I would continue to support them. Got out and realized I didn't want to retire from life when I was done. I I you know, I didn't make a hundred million dollars, I didn't make 200 million dollars, I didn't I didn't have the yacht lifestyle waiting for me. Like I did and I knew I didn't want to do you know what normally guys do when they get done, right? I wanted to chase something, and I'm a private pilot in my own life, and I uh I started looking into what it'd be like to fly professionally, whether for one of the big dogs or one for the small dogs, and you know, whatever private or you know, whatever. And I kind of had the itch of like what'd the guard look like and went down and talked to a recruiter and had a conversation with them about what it'd look like to be a helicopter pilot or a backseat or in a helicopter because we had a we had a helicopter uh uh division right off the right off Gallon Field there in in Idaho, and realized that that's the route I wanted to go. I wanted to serve my community, I wanted to I wanted a chance to serve the state of Idaho and the city of Boise and thank them for everything they'd given me. Because, you know, they took a kid from North Pole who hadn't not a ton in his life and turned him into a man, met my wife there, had my kids, gave me a college education, gave me a chance to go to the NFL, and showed up every weekend that I played there and and supported me. And I think five of them bought my jersey. So it was one of those things, and ten of them bought my bobblehead. So it's like, you know, a boise in Idaho itself have given me everything I have. And this was a chance for me to not only serve them um search and rescue and firefighting and disaster relief and all those cool things, also serve my nation, which was super, super important to me, and get to do something super cool, which was fly around in helicopters. They offered me a flight spot because of my private pilot's license. My wife said I could do whatever I want, but she said she did not want to move to Alabama. And I said, Hey, I get it. Like you just chased around a nine-year career. We wanted to raise our girls at home with family. And but if I took a back seater spot, I could be a mechanic, I could be flying all the time, and I'd only have to go to boot camp for 16 weeks and or 10 weeks, and then I had to go to train for 16 weeks. So I'd be only gonna be on 26 weeks. And I was like, okay. So that's what we did. She's a military brat, her father's a uh retired Air Force, so she knew the role, she knew the job, and she she was 100% behind me from the beginning. And man, I learned I learned how to be a mechanic on helicopters, I learned to fly. We were an assault company when I from when I first got into it, which means we're carrying around the troops, and I'm doing the door gunning and I'm wrenching on the helicopter, and we're you know, we're going out doing search and rescue missions and we're doing we're learning, you know, we're helping guys repel, and we're working with badasses and navy SEALs and JTAC guys and doing all this high speed stuff. And uh, we get the announcement that we're gonna a possible deployment coming up to Afghanistan and knew I wanted to go, knew it was something
Deployment to Afghanistan and Beating Cancer
SPEAKER_00I wanted to do in my life. I'm not a great Monday morning quarterback. I I try not to speak on things that I haven't done or don't do or don't have a lot of knowledge about. I don't try to guess. Um combat was one of those things that I wanted to go do. I wanted to serve my country internationally. I wanted to go onto those combat zones. I wanted to go help those people. Um, but more importantly, I wanted that experience because I don't want to speak onto it unless I've seen it. Um also knew I was not 25. I am not G.I. Joe. Uh, I am not a door-kicking barrel-chested son of a bitch. Like that's just not who I am. Um, I'm not built like those guys. Those are special, special people. But Medavac was a mission where I knew that I would have a chance to bring kids home and bring them back to their families. And I thought that that was the thing that I could do. Because if I can, if I can help load up kids and get them back to their families, you know, dead or alive, that's something that was super important. So I volunteered for that mission set. We learned to be a Medevac unit. Um, went out to Texas and trained for another uh three months after doing uh six months of training, I think, at home, and then flew to Afghanistan. Spent nine months in Afghanistan, about eight and a half. Actually, I got to come home two weeks early, um, because I got to see my brother graduate and become a Green Beret, which was awesome. And uh lived in the Hellman province for you know eight months with a bunch of other dudes and girls and saved a lot of lives, got to go on a lot of missions, put a few people in bags, and uh got to do something um amazingly, amazingly awesome that I would have probably done again. Uh, the only reason I left the military was I got diagnosed with cancer, lost my My flight status and didn't know if I was gonna be able to get it back and fly again. And as much as I believe that everybody's a hero that serves and everybody's got a job to do, and every job needs to be done, I knew I couldn't sit behind a desk and push papers if I lost my flight status. And uh I was selfish enough to know that I couldn't go out and do that mission after what I'd gotten to do. Um so I packed up my bags and told them I appreciate everything and I love it and I love those guys to this day. And if anybody if they ever call them, I'll show up and I'll play the Darren College role, I'll do that part, or I'll go out and help. And I work with a ton of military organizations now. Um, but I had to take off the uniform, which was a really, really tough decision. I bet, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you for your service on that.
SPEAKER_00That's that's awesome. Thank you. It was an awesome I it was awesome. I got to do things that I don't care if you've made a hundred million dollars in the NFL or ten million dollars or a dollar in the NFL. Like the things I got to do, they don't let any of those guys do. Like it's awesome. So it's one of those to fly around in uh government-issued equipment um and go see some amazing places and and be a part of some amazing missions with just some of the best human beings in the world was really, really awesome.
SPEAKER_01Very cool. And then and now you get to spend more time at home with with the kids, business, all that.
SPEAKER_00I do get to spend more time at home. I do get to be around them. That that is the hardest part. You know, my wife is a strong human being. I mean, as hard as it is to be away from her, like I knew like she's good, she's a rock. And then plus, she's still really, really good looking. Like, if something happened to me, she's gonna be fine. Um walking away from my kids for the first time ever. I mean, I could I mean when I left for boot camp, I didn't even realize how hard it was gonna be. My kids were, you know, getting to be four and two, five and three um when I left for boot camp. And those first 10 weeks that I was away from them, I didn't have contact with them for the first, I think three until I was able to even talk to them on the phone. And I balled like a bed. Like, I mean, first time I'd been away from my kids for more than uh two days of my entire life, right? I only traveled away from them when I played. And uh to leave them there, and that was just boot camp. So when I went over to Afghanistan, and you know, we're sending letters, and we're you know, I've got this really, really shitty like internet thing that I can kind of get a voice call in that breaks up all the time, and I'm like, oh hey, you know, blah, blah, blah. It was leaving the leaving the family was the hardest part. My wife's a stud. Like leaving her is always tough, but she's she's strong and she's the reason I can do what I do. But leave my daughters, man, that was that was tough. Jeez, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and uh once you got out, I mean you you so I I do want to jump into the wine for a bit. Uh was wine ever a part of like the North
Wine Journey: Three Fat Guys Winery
SPEAKER_01Pole experience? Or no, when did you get into wine? So I you're introduced.
SPEAKER_00You're introduced to wine probably from your parents, like most people. Like my mom was a wine drinker, my dad was never a wine drinker, but my mom was a wine drinker and got around those things and uh always enjoyed wine. Um, you know, through college, you're you're drinking more Mad Dog 2020, MD 2020s, a little different wine. Yeah, you can't afford you can't afford real wine at that time, but fell in love with it as I got a little bit older, and then obviously in the league, you're finally able to drink good wine and you can, you know, and it became part of our lifestyle. And it was one of those things where you're going up a nice dinner and you're having a steak. Like I was always, you know, red wine and a steak guy. You know, give me a big cab and a steak. Like that's you know, as cliche as that seems sometimes, like it's it's still so goddamn good. It's still goddamn good, right? So now like maybe now I drink a lot more varietals than I did back then, but it was one of those things where it was like it was always kind of a part of our life, and it's the same reason I'm in hospitality, right? And wine is one of those things where like my best memories are around bottles of wine with friends and family and celebration and even just casual catch-ups and all that kind of stuff. And we were looking for something really, really unique to do. And when I was drafted to Green Bay, I was drafted with a bunch of offensive linemen because they were kind of rebuilding the offensive line, and two of them became really good friends, Tony Mall and Jason Spitz. Tony Mall's Sonoma kid. There we go. Right there in the middle, Sonoma kid. Um, depending on how many drinks he's in, he's either second generation or 17th. It just depends on you know how far the cocktails his family either planted all the grass here or uh has helped cultivate it. Um, but no, so Tony obviously uh raised around the wine business, and we we were looking for something kind of fun to do and special to do because when you're an offensive lineman, nobody gives a shit, right? Like you play with Aaron Rodgers and and uh Brett Favre, like they want those jerseys, they want that kind of stuff, they don't want anything from you. You're just offensive linemen. So we're like, okay, what's something fun we can kind of do? And so Charles Woodson had just released Charles Woodson wine two years before that. So we piggybacked his winemaker and him and said, hey, we want to make our own private label. We just want to call three fat guys because three fat guys.
SPEAKER_01And uh not really, but okay. Yeah, those guys, those guys are all 300-something pounds, they're fat guys.
SPEAKER_00Don't don't be like that. These are the greens. If you want to pull up the whites, you can see uh what a real fat guy looks like. Um the greens are quite flattering. Uh the whites, not so much. And um, so we were like, okay, you know, let's make some cases and we'll donate it to causes that really, really matter to us, and we'll drink a little bit. And we were kind of like, okay, how much money do we got to spend? How much we got to make to have a lot to drink and be able to donate the other half. And we come to find out that number is about 126 cases. That was the that was the number that it worked out where we could drink half of it between the three of us and we could donate the other half. And that's really how it started, man. We used it as a as a giveaway to family and friends, we used it for charities, we used it for this small outlet, and we did that for almost our entire career. The wines got nicer, we got our own winemaker. You know, we worked with Jim McMahon, not the bear, the the local, you know, the local product here. And we we got our own, you know, with him, we got our own winemaker and we just made better and better wine. And then as Tony left the league, because Tony played five or six years, um, he came back here and started his real life and came back to Sonoma to raise his family and do all that stuff and kind of started figuring out like he didn't want to have a real life. He didn't want to do the the normal nine to five. He wanted to dive further and further into the wine company and and make it better. And he grew the varietals and he grew the tasting room, and Jason and I get to dip our toes in it and come around it and be, and and we still get to give to the things that matter us, which is you know, our law enforcement, our teachers, and our military and the kids. Like those are the four things that our organization and three fat guys has been able to lean into and give a bunch to. And then again, we've used our B, which is probably getting closer to C level celebrity status now, to go out and work with, you know, the Packers as much as we can or Wisconsin or or whoever we can to kind of spread that fun and joy. And, you know, a lot like your label, yeah. I mean, you guys you guys build a a great wine. We the only thing we take serious in our business is the wine. The rest of it's a tailgate to us, right? Like we show up and we might lose the keys to the building after this release party this weekend,
Breaking through the pertinaciousness of the wine world
SPEAKER_00but that's just kind of part of it. But we make good wine and we enjoy that and we enjoy the memories and the family and what it brings about along with it. But the rest of us is is pretty unpretentious and pretty unserious. Where I don't know, man. I've been in uh Napa and Sonoma for quite a few. There's there's a lot of pretentiousness.
SPEAKER_01So Oh, there is, yeah. We're trying to be the total opposite. Yeah, we we try to beat the hell out of the pretentiousness here too, and and spread that throughout the nation. I mean, that that's that's a big part of it. I think that's one of the reasons that you know so many people get turned off by wine. It's like Absolutely. You don't you don't want to you don't want to build walls, you want to break those walls down. And so it's you know the barrier of entry can't be. I I've having people like you in it, it's great. We're all you know, you know you you're just talking from a point of passion, I went enjoyment with friends, family experiences, all that. I mean, that's what it's about.
SPEAKER_00One of my first visits out here, and my wife and I came out with Tony, and we were, you know, this is before we even had three fat guys in the tasting room going in. You know, Tony obviously knows everybody from every side. So we set up these tours and we go out and we go, we go hit some of the big dogs, right? We're getting a nice place around sound. We end up over at Opus One and we walk in and I'm in, I'm kind of dressed like I am today, but I'm you know, I'm 18 years younger, 19 years younger. And uh we get up to the counter and this lady looks at us and goes, I'm sorry, sir, you know this is $75 a tasting, correct? Before we start. And I was like, I can't lie. I almost bought a ball off the wall and threw it on the ground. I was like, I was just I was just gonna shatter it right there. Be like, okay, I'll have the next one. Like, nah, that's a terrible vintage. Like, uh, can we get more of the 03 out here? This 06 is just crap. Um, yeah, but like, and I knew when we did, when we went through some of those, that I was like, we'll never be this group, right? I've I've met some of the richest people I've ever met in the world wore overalls, and I've never judged a book by its cover. And I think that's the one great thing in hospitality is like, I don't care if you're the person ordering a cup of soup or you're there for the best meal that I serve. My staff better treat you like it's cheers. Like it better be your place. They they have an experience to provide. I tell all my staff when I build my restaurants, every time we sit down with staff for the very first time, I tell them, this is my house, but this is your home. And you better treat it that way because you're the reason people are going to continue coming back here. You're gonna provide the experience they do. And that's the one amazing thing in hospitality. We ask people for their time and their money, two most important things in their life. One they can replace and one they can't. And I think whether you're buying, you know, whether you're buying five dollar cocktails or you're buying fifty dollar cocktails, it better be one of those things where we're providing a certain experience to you every single time. And three fat guys is absolutely that same thing. Like we expect to do things in a certain way and provide a certain brand. And if you like it, come on, man. We love you. That's awesome. If you're if we're not your cup of tea, totally get it. Yeah, awesome, man. There's a million cups.
SPEAKER_01It's it's funny. I I always correlate, well, I'm not it took me a while to figure this out, but with the amount of products in the wine world, right? So over 10,000, I think it's somewhere on 14,000. But isn't all blown by wine, five people? Yeah, yeah. Really, really most of it is, yeah. But there's a lot of selection for the consumer, right? And there's that wall of wine and and all that. And so if anything doesn't hit the right mark, price, package, quality, story, whatever, it's so easy to trade out. And I thought for a long time, what other product categories are there that a consumer can trade out of? And the only other product category I could think of is restaurants. Yeah. Like you got to hit everything right, and and you you want that to be a loyal customer, but they have an expectation every time they walk through those doors.
SPEAKER_00Every single time. The funniest thing about restaurants is, and I've realized this, and it's the same with wine, it seems, right, right. I'm actually only servicing 10 to 15% of the people that come to my restaurant regularly, right? Those 10 to 15% are my most loyal customers. They're the ones that are there multi-times a week, and they're my biggest amplifier for my business. They're the ones that go out and tell everybody, they're the ones that bring new people in, they're the ones that bring in my new regulars, right? But those 15%, man, they are the most important part of my business, right? Like I've got other regulars. I've got people show up once a month. I got what, but I've got this 10 to 15%, it seems, that every one of my restaurants that's like they're the ones that are always going to be there. And no matter how much marketing I do, no matter how many social media things I do, it doesn't really matter, right? Restaurants, food, wine, things you put in your mouth and belly are one of the few things in the world where it takes somebody like you to say to me, This is what I drink, this is what I eat, this is where I go, this is where I trust my food and my money, my time, my experiences. And then I all go, right? It's really, really hard to get people to get that first thing because almost everything, I don't care if it's you know where you get your coffee or you know, where you buy your car from, like almost everybody has these little Rolodexes in their mind. Five to six to seven places, they're like, hey, I go, that's where I go to eat, that's where I go to do this thing. And that this is business, this is pleasure, it's going in their mind. This is where I go on my dates, this is where my wife loves to go, this we're my favorite, whatever's that. And your job in whatever business you are in is to try to get in that Rolodex. I want one spot in that Rolodex. Yeah, if I can get you three times into my restaurants or I can drink my wine or whatever it is, I probably got you. You're probably gonna be a regular. You're gonna enter that 15% window where it's my job is to make your experience better every single time you come in. Make sure your experiences are met every time you come in because you're that new amplifier for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. How do you become the habit of the creature?
SPEAKER_00Uh huh. Yeah. Absolutely. And I've I've found it's not always providing the best thing in the world. A lot of it's providing the best experience. Oh, yeah. A lot of my customers are like, hey man, I'm gonna be honest with you. It's not like you're serving the best taco in town, right? Like it's it's a it's a it's a $4 taco. It's not like I'm not trying, but my staff treats them great. My cocktails are good. People know they're there, they're comfortable, they're happy with the environment, and we serve good food at all my places. I built all my restaurants to be very blue-collar. I didn't build any. In my steakhouse, yeah, Corso Italian steak was built to be the place you could show up on a Wednesday, get a $30 steak, and get a, you know, get a $13 drink and leave for $40. And an average person can go out and have a steak dinner and not feel like they're gonna spend $400, right? You want to come in and buy the the $100 steak and get the $500 bottle of wine and treat your wife or girlfriend or date to whatever, like awesome, man. Holiday, great. But I want places that people feel like they can come in off the street in a t-shirt every single day and get treated right and have a great opportunity and experience.
SPEAKER_01That's beautiful. Are you gonna continue expanding in the restaurant world?
SPEAKER_00I hope so. I'm gonna uh I haven't really, you know, I'm in a position now where I'm actually gonna be getting ready to go out where uh my partnerships have uh dissolved. But you know, my other partners have moved on to their new passion projects, so I run them all by myself
Support local small business
SPEAKER_00and I'm getting ready to go out and find some new partners and some new uh investors and hopefully grow and hopefully do some things. There's some targeted areas in Boise that are getting really, really busy and packed. And I want to start going out and servicing some of the areas that are less serviced and less packed and start giving some of those people an opportunity so they don't have to drive all the way in and try to offer them a deal and be like, hey man, again, I want to pop up 10 cheers. I want people to feel like I I always loved I love neighborhood restaurants. I love the idea of the neighborhood restaurant, I love having a place that you get to call your own. But what I most love is I love private individually owned businesses. And I think we'll all be replaced by chains and conglomerates if we don't support local and we don't support independently owned places, like we're all gonna be chilies.
SPEAKER_01I hate that idea.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's that's a scary thought.
SPEAKER_00I believe now it's obviously it's my business, but I believe the restaurants are the lifeblood of your community. They they are they are a they're a window into the kind of community that you have, they're part of the culture, they're part of like what makes your community what it is. And I promise you, you don't want to be you don't want to be a Taco Bell community. Right? Like as much as I love Taco Bell, my kids love Taco Bell, like that's that's not my local restaurant, that's not my local experience. That's not where I want to take my family, my friends, my business associates. So I want to pop up more of what we're doing, yeah. But I'm gonna have to find people that want that dream too.
SPEAKER_01Well, I I also hope that customers are being a little more cautious as as to understanding you know what what restaurants are actually chains, because there are a lot that do not look like chains. So here in Napa Valley, we have a we have a no chain in the agreserve. So Napa Valley has no chains allowed. Yeah. Um we just lost our only ANW, our only fast food, St. Alina. Yeah. It was one of the first. It was what it was pre- it was pre pre-no. Yeah, it was pre-no. And then we got a safe way, that's the only other chain we got in town. Uh, I think the only town in the nation that has zero chains is Carmel by the Sea.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01In California. Yeah, I've been through there. If you run through there and just, you know, restaurant hop, bar hop, you feel it. You feel you feel that there's like there is a culture behind every location. And it's it's very it's a very special thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a sp I'm restaurants are hard enough to run anyways, right? There's a real culture problem with restaurants, period. I think the I think the average right now for the United States is 160% turnover at their average restaurant because every single restaurant is lumped in with every single chain, right? And the way Taco Bell treats their people or McDonald's or whoever you want isn't the way that like a local restaurant's trying to treat their people, right? And a big part of my business, and especially my director of operations, like the the businesses we want to run is we want a different culture in our business. I want I want buy-in from my custom, you know, from my from my employees. I want them to feel like they're in a place where they can do a good job and and provide to people and be taken care of. And that includes us trying to do everything we can for them. But for us to do that, we have to be successful. And that's the first thing. Like, hey, I want to provide insurance for everybody. I want to overpay everybody, I want everybody to do well. But for us to do that, we've got to get through this place first to go. Like, I didn't get into restaurants to get rich. It's actually a great way to lose money. But it's one of those things where it's like, hey, if we can change a culture and if we can build a great culture around these businesses and we can provide places people want to be and we can enhance our community. I'm very much a high tide rises all boats person. Like, I want to make my community better. I want I believe in the street we're on. I believe in that community, I believe in those people. And I want this younger generation to have something that they feel like they can come in and buy to. You know, a lot of people complain about this generation, and it's fine. Like every generation is complaining about the generation after them, right? They don't work hard enough, they don't do all these kind of things. But I think that this generation has missed the opportunity. We pulled the ladder up behind us in success, right? We offered them and said, hey, here's gonna be the deal. We're gonna make houses extremely expensive, we're not gonna give any loans, and we're not gonna pay enough to even live in that life anyway. So good luck. And could you come work for me really, really hard? And it's like, man, that's like, but if we can build something where I can allow my employees to feel like they've got some, they've got a little skin in the game and they've got a chance to build something up and they've got a chance to continue. Like every, you know, my wife has a program through our our restaurants that engage with community and leadership to be like, hey, if you want to do more than you're doing, like we'll put those resources in front of you through leadership programs or through the state or through education or whatever. We'll find those benefits and we'll go out and help you track that down. You just tell us what you want to do. And if you don't want to do anything, great, man, just be the best server you can be. Because I got a couple servers bartenders making a shit ton of money. Like I see the paychecks. I'm like, okay. Yeah, okay. I'm like, I own the restaurant, I'm not making this.
SPEAKER_01So, like, but that's that's a great way to do it. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I I know uh I know we got to wind it down, but man, I I gotta say, a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing it.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for your service. It was a real pleasure talking to you and and uh and looking forward to sharing this out with our audience. Um, and and looking forward to continuing on, you know, enjoying, you know, three fat guys getting up to Boise, trying out some of the rest of the stuff. I would love to have you. We'd love to have you.
SPEAKER_03We can't stay.
SPEAKER_01You said it was our home. They don't need no more coming.
SPEAKER_00You don't gotta go home, we just gotta leave here. Uh no.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you, Darren. It was a pleasure. Yeah, thank you so much.